The club really used the downturn to become more efficient in its operations. "Since 2009 we were able to reduce our property operating cost by 33% and reduce our administrative overhead by 33%. At the same time we added to the dues a prudent component used to pay down our debt and a replacement reserve to deal with the long term capital requirements of the properties." said John Beckel, General Manager "The net result is a 20% reduction in the annual membership dues since 2009." he continued.

M Private Residences has a rather unique structure amongst destination clubs, in that it's a member owned, non-profit, so really is like a country club for vacation homes, where members hire a professional management team to run their club. The Board of Directors is made up of nine elected members all of whom are shareholders.

M Private owns 18 homes around the world with an average value of about Can$2m each. The homes are mainly in the western US and western Canada and also include London, Provence, New York (pictured above), Cabo san Lucas and Barbados. There are three shareholder levels which offer from 21 to 60 nights of travel a year, and a nice perk is that any travel reserved within 30 days does not count towards the annual nights, so members with some flexibility in their plans can really travel quite a lot. The annual dues equate to between $460-$750 per night, depending on the shareholder level.

John Beckel added "The beauty of our model is it proved to be recession proof. We are now a lean mean operating machine, and are starting to attract new members who enjoy the travel and full services."